555212 - imap/local/composeMsgs.properties should use names, not IDs

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

sipaq, our localization coordinator, told me on IRC that he thinks the files
imapMsgs.properties
localMsgs.properties
composeMsgs.properties
should use string names instead of IDs.

Rationale: (sipaq) "so that a localizer knows what he's localizing there". That seems to be esp. important, because many of these are error msgs and similar strings coming from the backend and cannot be readily reproduced and seen in the UI.

This would also remove the need for nsLocalStrings.h and friends, which means one less place to change to modify when I add a string, and no need to arrange the numbers somehow, and not knowing whether I should sort the .properties file by number or logically.

Comment 1

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

<BenB> [ bug 555164 ] means I can only add strings at the very end (and have to pay attention that nothing was removed from the end)
<philor> you could just replace the Bad Idea numbers with strings
<Standard8> yeah, as you know, ideally we'd use strings, but we haven't got around to replacing all of those yet
<Standard8> I'm tempted to put those on my plate as something to resolve post 3.1

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

yes, I'm all for this - the caveat is that there are cases where we'd need to map between error codes (either internal or from the server) to string names.

Comment 3

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Fair enough. I didn't know that.

Comment 4

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

Darn, ignore my previous comment. I ment to post it to another bug... Sorry.